Dark Void had bland looking environments and an incomplete story, but I thought the core gameplay and controls were excellent. Flying with the jetpack offered a great sense of flight and freedom, and the ability to seamlessly transition from third person shooting to flying were very well done. The music was also riveting!

I doubt Airtight Games made enough money for a sequel, but if they did have the finances, a sequel could be special now that the core gameplay is established.

Alone in the Dark (2008) had some control and pacing issues, but the MacGyver-like puzzles, interesting setting, and superb musical score made it a worthwhile experience.

Rise of the Argonauts was misunderstood. In my opinion, the developers and publishers made the mistake of advertising the game as an action-RPG, when it should have been understood more as an adventure game with action-RPG elements. Unfortunately, since it was labeled an action-RPG, people were disappointed that it had so little combat. Personally, I love how combat only occured within the context of the story.

Generally, I thought the story, characters, and varied environments were the highlights of the game. I really felt like a king going on an epic adventure when I played the game!

Comments (1)

Alone in the Dark

definitely had some interesting Macguyver puzzles. I was in an underground sewer or power station one time and there was a big caverous room with a platform on one side, and on the other side of the area was one of those darkness emitters that you have to destroy. The space between you and the emitter was foiled with fences and stuff so you couldn't just shoot at the thing. The only way to kill it was to pull a lever, activate the assembly line system, which would make this metal pillar go around the room eventually passing by the emitter. I had to grab all this junk around me, make a stick bomb out of a plastic bottle, tape, and cloth. Once I made the bomb I activated the assembly line, as the metal started to move around I lit the sticky bomb, had to hurl it across the abyss and stick it to the metal piece as it moved around. The idea being to hitch a ride on the metal piece, have it go by the emitter, and blow it up. It was really difficult and I had to try it a handful of times before I got it right. The timing had to be perfect, the throw had to be perfect, and it was really satisfying once I beat it.

I really loved the beginning of the game where you are in the hotel, it catches fire, and I had to put fires out with the extinguishers, and move around the building till it collapsed and I got out. Watching doors burn down, or busting them down with a melee object was awesome. Figuratively speaking, the game fell off a cliff right after that beginning sequence. After the hotel, theres a horrible driving sequence (the driving was awful), and then suddenly the game became really open world and you were free to just wander around Central Park and do odd things. The pacing was so weird, driving around the park was a pain, and I was never sure what I needed to be doing. There were spaces designed where you had to get a light source (like a glow stick) and toss into an area where a bunch of darkness is on the floor. The light scatters the darkness and allows you to walk through for a short time. There was one area that used that mechanics and I died there a dozen times, it wasn't fun at all. I felt like the game beat me, but eventually I just lucked my way through it and made it through that area. Mechanically the early 360 version is so painful to play.

It's all the little things about the game that I love. I even thought it was cool to be able to blink your eyes. My friend Justin was watching me play one time and I was getting spit on by some critters and it was blurring my vision, so I blinked a few times, cleared my vision, and blasted the monster with some incendiary pistol bullets. He was like, "What?! Did you just make him blink?" There's really some cool little moments in the game.